The rhythm of the seasons is with us and its time for the "Winter Dog Brothers Gathering of the Pack".

On behalf of the Council of Elders of the Dog Brothers, Dog Brothers Inc. Martial Arts hereby cordially invites you to its "Dog Brothers Winter Gathering of the Pack" at 11:00 AM on Sunday, November 20, 2005 at the RAW Gym in El Segundo to conclude when the fighters are done.

Many of you may remember our Gatherings held in the park in Hermosa Beach, which, although they were hosted at considerable expense, were always free to you our friends, our guests. However with a private facility involved we now need to charge admission of $10. We ask that you still consider yourselves to be our friends and our guests. In this context we ask that you respect our wishes in the matter of Video.

It is very simple:

NO VIDEO CAMERAS, NO DUAL PURPOSE CAMERAS (i.e. with both still photo and video capabilities). THIS MATTER IS OF IMPORTANCE TO US! And, if you see someone videoing, please don't let them abuse our hospitality-please let us know.

As always, you may take photographs for personal, non-commercial use PROVIDED you give us a complete set of the ones you take. Thanks to the increasing numbers of you who actually remember and bother to do this! It is very much appreciated!

The Magic Words:

The MAGIC WORDS: "No judges, no referees, no trophies. One rule only: Be friends at the end of the day. This means our goal is that no one spends the night in the hospital. Our goal is that everyone leaves with the IQ with which they came. No suing no one for no reason for nothing no how no way! Real Contact Stickfighting is Dangerous and only you are responsible for you. Protect yourself at all times. All copyright belongs to Dog Brothers Inc. CA law applies."

This matter of accepting the risk applies to those of you in the crowd too. For example, sticks, and fights for that matter, may go flying into the crowd. Parents should consider things like this in deciding whether a childis old enough to bring along and/or deciding on from where to observe the event. For example, sitting on the heavy bags ringing the fighting area is a really risky idea for a child (or adult for that matter). If a stick or a fight comes careening your way-get out of the way!

At each Gathering there is a different focus. For the knife fights, there will be some surprise rules. And for the stick (and other weapons too!) we encourage people to hide knives and bring them into play during the fight.

Remember that you may fight with weapons other than a stick if you can find someone willing to go against you. Please consider stick and knife (aluminum blades OK with us) fights, staff fights, and anything else. In order to more deeply explore certain variables, fighters may agree to "no grappling" rules. In staff fights, the fighters may wear wrestling type ear guards under the fencing masks.

There is no charge for fighters but FIGHTERS MUST PRE-REGISTER, even if they have fought before. The Fighter's Registration form can be found on the website. If you are a member of the Dog Brothers tribe an email or phone call will suffice. For all Fighter Registration matters, please contact Cindy at Prettykitty@dogbrothers.com 310-540-6853. You are not pre-registered until your name appears on the list of registered fighters on the website!!!

If you have fought before and show up without having pre-registered there will be a $20 fee. We REALLY, REALLY, REALLY don't like having to deal with this on such a busy day so please do both you and us a favor and pre-register. If you haven't fought before and you show up without having pre-registered, you will not be allowed to fight. This will be ruthlessly enforced!

Crafty, What size blade will we be using? Sharkies? Also, what will the rules be because of the close nature? Can we opt not to go for our knife and stay EH looking to control the other persons knife, punch, kick, etc?

As always the weapons are up to the fighters-- so protect yourself at all times!

Do note that the lighter the gloves that a fighter wears, the better his accessing skill should be.

Dog Gints, who runs a fight club up in the Bay Area, offers the following comments:

Crafty Dog================

Hello Marc,

I read your note on proximal knife fights on Eskrima Digest. Have you considered shorter blade lengths ? I've tried and have witnessed probably 200 such fights in my garage, both matched short knivesand unarmed vs. short knife. The shorter blades keep the fighters in slapping/palm butt range and make for a rougher fight as there is less give to the thrust. So, more torso scrapes are sustained, requiring some blade maintenance with sand paper after each round. The bladestypically burred when they scrape the metal helmet mesh, although in my garage, many points are burred when the blade is dropped.

I cover my longer aluminum blades with clear car door protectors, as recommended by Bob Burgee. These are available at Kragen auto parts,but only one of their two varieties holds up. There are various models of short knife. Too many have a point and make for painful/dangerous thrusts that can crack ribs - not good for starting an event. One of Bob Burgee's models , the Chisel tip, it pretty good when ground down a bit more. I have a pair of mirror-polished short blades with circular tips, custom-made by Burgee. These look great and reduce the skin punctures. If you like, I can bring the pair to the Gathering.

Gruhn, that SuperKnife blade model is quite handsome. It's a fine training blade, but in my experience with such a tip on a short knife in sparring matches, the tip is too pointed. An wielder experienced with that training weapon would control the power, but imagine a full force arc from a #3 angle (more like 4:00pm) to your ribs from someone that doesn't understand the damage this baby can do. I have a few long (faded!)scars on my left ribs from such a blade and consider myself lucky that my ribs didn't break. Short training knives offer much more puncture power than longer blades as the wrist is more able to stabilize the torque acting upon it. The same can be said of thrusting with a stick and comparing the impact from the butt and tip of the stick, using the same angle of attack.

I'll post a picture of my rounded blades (custom crafted by Bob Burgee of Edges2) very soon. Also, I'll dig up a video clip of an excited knife-newbie stabbing me full force with a Spyderco Endura trainer in a bout of Unarmed vs. Short knife. Yeee - owww ! I no longer use that blade for sparring, but it is a nice training blade. Even with the round-tipped blades,the impact is considerable.

Gints, I totally see and respect where you are coming from, you obviously know whats up. I wish there was a happy medium The size is obviously more realistic but yes the tip could cause some serious damage.

It is perfectly within my sense of things that two seasoned fighters could go with a non-cutting replica of what is actually carried on the street. It would not be the first time that ribs were at stake around here BTW, note the advantages that the man with ultralight gloves would have over a standard light hockey gloves fighter with regard to not only dexterity, but weapon selection and also note the role of clothing. Do clipits work with sweats?

Certainly many/most? fighters will go with hard plastic-- and this is worthy!!!-- but some will be exploring aluminum. Dog Gints speaks from an above average amount of experience in these things and we do not need to shoot for the moon this time around.

Woof Ryan, As Crafty mentioned, I have witnessed some alumin. blade matches at previous gatherings.So I'am fairly certain you can get a match If you so desired. My caution to you might be that, in order to get a match like this you may have to fight a very experienced fighter.I also just caution you to consider that fights at the gatherings are just that, they are full out fights.I got rocked pretty good by some punches and kicks in a previous knife fight.I would suggest that you becareful what you ask for Hopefully you will after the knife fights have a good long day of stick fights ahead of you and not a trip to the ER. TomHave a great gathering and Hard fighting to all the combatants!!

Because we had a perforated eardrum a few years back and because of my sense of this slightly raising the mask off the temple-- in good hands the staff is a weapon of formidable power and we have several people who handle a staff pretty well.

The following is from an email I received from someone known to me to be a member of a highly elite military unit and is reprinted here with permission.

Crafty Dog====================================

I attended the Gathering in Los Angeles today. Crafty really has it together. The Dog Brothers program seems to revolve around a solid understanding of the warrior mindset. I beleive the phrase was "walk every day as a warrior".

The premise was seasoning and validation of training concepts and more importantly the FIGHT.

I saw some interesting dynamics today:

A young fighter decided he was too timid to fight on television (it was being filmed). I was amazed that he had the integrity to tell the truth. Most people would lie. "My knee is sore" or "I have a sprained anus".

This kid was honest. He was nervous.

His mentor talked to him and he decided to fight. He performed excellently and was happy for it. His courage was tested and he passed. It was pretty cool to see that much candor and humility.

These men wore fencing eye protection and racketball gloves and beat the fuck out of each other. With discipline and restraint.

The fought hard and stopped when it was over. No rules aside from the simple code of "Be friends at the end of the day".

A rather chubby fighter took to the mat. You could hear a few muffled snickers from the 4 or 5 guests who shouldnt have been there.

It was the best crowd I have ever seen. They applauded courage and technique nothing else. With the exception of a a handful of people.

If youve ever been to a BJJ tournament on the West Coast you know what it can be like.

This fat fighter was paired against a genetic freak. He was SOUNDLY beaten, if anyone was keeping score. He was a bit slow, and had poor balance. The athelete had his way. This young man continued to fight, with everything he had. He went out in front of family, friends, and fellow Warriors. Without fear of humiliation.

It was pretty fucking inspiring.

When the show ended I went over and thanked him for sharing his bravery with us. He looked a bit puzzled and started to apologize for his percieved short comings during his three fights.

Absolutely humble.

There is no limit to the talent a man can squander. Why is it that courage is so RARE that it overshadows everything else.

It is this type of mentality that breeds success. Stories like that keep me going when I doubt myself, or feel outmatched in martial arts, business, creative work, etc.

The idea of doing your best, no matter what, and letting the chips fall where they may frees up a reservoir of mental energy and calm focus that lets you do things that you may have never thought possible.